MuttShack Animal Rescue Roseville Man Rescues Post Katrina Pets

Hungry, scared, tired and alone, these lost souls wandered the soggy streets, left with little hope following the devastating effects of Hurricane Katrina.

While countless thousands of Gulf Coast residents found themselves displaced by the hurricane, often overlooked in the mayhem was the plight of the region's animal population.

And with the animals sent to the back of the line, Roseville resident John Mabry was one of the many volunteers who made sure the four-legged refugees were not left behind.

Three weeks after Katrina laid New Orleans to waste, Mabry took a month-and-a-half long leave of absence from his job as an account representative for PG&E, traveling to the waterlogged city with the animal rescue group Mutt Shack.

Once there Mabry and a team of volunteers worked to rescue hundreds of dogs and cats, as well as an alligator, a boa constrictor and even an iguana abandoned after the storm.

"We'd go door to door starting first thing in the morning," said Mabry, 49. "We had permission to break down doors if we heard something and we found hundreds of animals that way.

"The overall destruction was incredible. In the area we were in not one family could return to their home, and that's a city of 1.5 million people."

PG&E Senior Account Manager Clay Schmidt, Mabry's co-worker for the past 24 years, wasn't surprised by his friend's decision to get involved.

"Losing him for that long of a period was hard, but everyone else has stepped up. It was our little way of doing our part to help," Schmidt said.

Among the hardest hit areas was the city's lower income section, where conditions that were bad before the hurricane became worse in the days and weeks following the storm, especially for animals like Woody, an 8-month-old golden retriever Mabry had shipped back to Sacramento.

However, Mabry, who has volunteered at local golden retriever rescue Homeward Bound for five years, points out that for the vast majority of the animals, Katrina was a blessing in disguise.

"As weird as it may sound, the bottom line is the storm saved a lot of animals' lives," Mabry said. "I'd say 99 percent of the animals we rescued were neglected before Katrina. Not a single male dog was neutered and over half had worms. When we found Woody he had chain burns around his neck and was way underweight."

Of the hundreds of animals he came in contact with Mabry became especially attached to Woody, who was found skinny and scared, wandering the streets of the devastated city.

Mabry paid for the dog to be flown to Sacram-ento. Woody arrived Nov. 9 after a nine-hour, three-stop journey, and the pup has immediately taken on rock star status.

Hours after arriving, Mabry and Woody made a television appearance on UPN Channel 31's morning show, where a calm and composed Woody posed for the camera like a seasoned veteran.

Woody, who was left in the care of the Homeward Bound people, was adopted by a family of four from Los Altos two days later.

"When he came in, I expected the worst," Mabry said. "But he was up in his cage, wagging his tail and then he went on TV and acted like he'd done it his whole life; he's really a celebrity now."

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